Always in the short story there is this sense of outlawed figures wandering about the fringes of society.... As a result there is in the short story at its most characteristic something we do not often find in the novel - an intense awareness of human loneliness.
Frank O'Connor

Presque vu LIX

Hanif Kureishi, in The Guardian, on creative writing courses, which he describes as “the new mental hospitals”:

Aspiring writers have plenty of things to say, acknowledged Kureishi, “but then they get degrees. I always give people the same mark – 71% – and then you write these reports. I always say they were well-behaved, well-dressed.
“Then they write me these nice letters saying, ‘I never expected I would get so much.’ But how can you mark creative writing?”

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A number of European cities have set the standard for bicycle use and promotion, via pro-bike transportation and land use policies, as well as heavy funding for bicycle infrastructure and public education. In Copenhagen, for example, 36 percent of commuters bike to work. The city plans to invest more than $200 million in bike facilities between 2006 and 2024 and estimates that by 2015 half its residents will bike to work or school. In Amsterdam, cycling accounts for 55 percent of journeys to jobs that are less than 7.5 kilometers (4.7 miles) from home. The government has pledged to spend $160 million from 2006 to 2010 on bicycle paths, parking, and safety. And Freiburg, Germany, a city with 218,000 people, has allocated roughly $1.3 million annually for cycling since 1976; now some 70 percent of local trips there are made by bike, on foot, or by public transit. Earth Policy Institute.